Chris Lombardi puts defense and security under the spotlight, as he shares his takes on recent NATO and EU cooperation and provides insight into the company’s own long-term strategic partnerships in Europe.

Three trends are currently driving the global electricity sector: decarbonization, decentralization and differentiation. Utilities are making significant contributions to mitigate carbon emissions, while a technology revolution is …

Commission proposes carbon market for major polluters

The United States, China, India and other major polluters should join the EU to form a global carbon market by 2020, the European Commission proposed yesterday (28 January) in a paper setting out goals it believes the EU should pursue in talks this December in Copenhagen on a new global climate-change agreement.

Rich countries that belong to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), should form the market by 2015, the Commission suggests in the communication, with all large emitters joining by 2020.

Realistic plan

Stavros Dimas, the European environment commissioner, said that he believed “the idea of an OECD-wide carbon market is becoming increasingly realistic”, referring to US President Barack Obama’s plan to create a domestic emissions-trading system.

But, he stressed, “we should go ahead with an agreement in Copenhagen no matter whether they have a cap-and-trade system functioning in the US.”

Fact File

€175bn

Estimated annual costs to curb carbon emissions

Dimas wrote an open letter to Obama on Tuesday (27 January) calling on the US to join Europe “shoulder to shoulder in the battle against climate change”.

Dimas believes the carbon market could generate much of the roughly €175 billion that the EU estimates the world will, by 2020, need to spend annually to reduce emissions.

An earlier draft of the communication also said that, in addition to existing development aid, “up to €30 billion” a year should be made available to help poor countries adapt to climate change. That figure was omitted from the paper’s final version, prompting criticism from campaigners.